Wildland fires disrupt budget

Tornadoes and floods qualify as natural disasters. Wildfires less so — especially on the vast federal lands in the West.

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Indeed, Smokey’s Forest Service ends up competing for dollars with the Environmental Protection Agency, which is charged with addressing what many believe is the biggest disaster of all and a new catalyst for wildland fire: climate change.

California Gov. Jerry Brown, battling fire in his drought-stricken state, is raising the alarm. “Humanity is on a collision course with nature,” the Democratic governor warned on network television Sunday, then returned to the subject the next day at U.C. Davis. “We are going to have to adapt because the climate is changing,” Brown said.

All this comes into play in Congress as wildland firefighters and EPA’s scientists are thrown together in the same $30 billion-something bill that funds the natural resources side of the federal budget.

Since Republicans took over the House in 2010, this bill has been reduced by 14 percent in real dollars, adjusted for inflation. EPA has borne the brunt of those cuts. But as fire costs continue to grow, Republicans have had to scramble to preserve some balance for popular lands and wildlife programs in the West.

It took a last-minute deal on the farm bill in February to save $425 million in promised aid this year for counties and towns surrounded by tax-exempt federal lands. And Idaho Republicans — hit hard by fire — have taken the lead for their party now in proposing that some portion of the firefighting costs be treated as natural disasters, outside the traditional appropriations process.

An annual contingency fund — about $12.1 billion this year — already exists to cover disasters like floods and tornadoes through the Federal Emergency Management Agency. Legislation introduced last December in the Senate and in February in the House would require that base funding for wildland fire management continue to come from regular appropriations. But about 30 percent — or the equivalent of $420 million this year — would be judged catastrophic enough to be funded from the disaster reserve.

“Wildfires to me are the same as any natural disaster: a hurricane, a tornado or something else,” said Rep. Mike Simpson (R-Idaho), a lead sponsor. “When you have 1 percent of the fires account for 30 percent of the costs, those are the catastrophic fires, and that’s what we’re trying to get at.”

“Under this bill, you would budget for the normal firefighting costs, which are about 70 percent of the 10-year average. And once it reached above that, it would go into the disaster fund.”

President Barack Obama embraced this concept in his March budget for the coming 2015 fiscal year that begins Oct. 1. But the administration then went a big step further by proposing an almost $1.2 billion contingency for firefighting on top of $975 million in base funding for the fire suppression accounts at the Forest Service and Interior Department.

That adds up to $2.16 billion — a better than 50 percent increase over current appropriations of $1.37 billion for fire suppression in 2014. But the White House believes it’s a prudent step given the heightened level of fires predicted in the next few years. And the promise is made that whatever fire money comes out of the disaster funds, it will not increase the long-term deficit-reduction goals set in the 2011 Budget Control Act.

Having just negotiated changes in BCA last December, House Budget Committee Chairman Paul Ryan (R-Wis.) is leery and suspects an end run around the spending caps.

“Preventing and fighting wildfires are national priorities, and the president should budget accordingly. But the president is asking for $1.2 billion less than what he believes is necessary,” said Ryan spokesman William Allison. “Congress just agreed to caps on discretionary spending, which will reach over $1 trillion in the coming year. The fact that the president refused to use one-tenth of 1 percent of that money to fully fund wildfire prevention and suppression speaks to his real priorities.”

Mindful of Ryan’s concerns, House Appropriations Committee Chairman Hal Rogers (R-Ky.) has assumed no changes will be made in current law. But in allocating money for the natural resources bill this month, Rogers provided only $30.2 billion, just $162 million over current funding.

That leaves little room for added firefighting dollars, unless EPA is cut again. Moreover, the farm bill fix for payments to local Western governments is good only for 2014. And Rogers must somehow find $425 million in loose change to meet these commitments going into November’s elections.

The West is not without clout.

Sen. Ron Wyden (D-Ore.), newly empowered as chairman of the Senate Finance Committee, is a major advocate for the change in funding fire costs. “I am pulling out all the stops for doing it,” Wyden said. “The worst of the fires you would take care of with the disaster fund. You would no longer continue this practice where, when you have an inferno, you rob the prevention fund and then the problem gets worse.”

In the House, no one matches Simpson, given his position on Appropriations and the chits he holds with both Ryan and Rogers.

Without Simpson’s vote, Ryan would never have gotten his budget out of his committee in the spring of 2012 — a victory that helped Ryan secure the vice presidential nomination months later. And on Appropriations, Simpson has worked closely with Rogers, who badly wants some fix himself if his spending bills are to become law.

In an interview, Simpson said he had the votes to win in April in the Budget Committee but opted not to force an immediate fight with Ryan on the budget resolution. Going forward now, he is ready to sit down with Ryan but answers firmly — “Oh yeah” — when asked if he will bring the debate to a head this summer.